THERAPY IS FUNDAMENTALLY ANTI-SPIRITUAL!

I am not sorry for using a yet another provocative title which might trigger my liberal elite friends or rather my liberal elite acquaintances. But I am following the ways of my Favorite philosopher Slavoj Zizek. I stand by my title. Here's how. 

People, who today talk about mental health, try to club therapy and spirituality under the same box. They try to sell a sort of cocktail of meditation, positive affirmations, law of attraction and therapy under the same tagline, "Good for mental health". But This is the same as when one says, boiled chicken, Chicken curry, Chicken Mughlai and other chicken dishes are healthy for you. The thing to note here is that they are different things and on different levels affect our mental health. On one hand, these stupidities like law of attraction and positive affirmations are bull crap pseudoscience, On the other hand, Adhyatm, or the science of self-knowledge is like salad for your mental health. Let us expand. 

Psychology, till now, especially western, is non-creative management of mind. Whenever you visit a therapist and talk about your problem, the pattern in most of times, where a non-pathological issue is addressed, remains to somehow let you express your frustration and wait till the last and then somehow to convince you that you should console yourself because the terrible thing that happened to you, happens to most of us and hence it is a problem beyond repair in some sense and hence just bear with it and it will go. But wait a minute! Isn't this attitude a particular pathos which might lead to further repression of emotions? Temporarily you might think that you are relaxed because you accepted your pain and now you are ok, but wait, if the pain is not diminishing but is continuous, like sometimes, when you are in a toxic relation, or you are oppressed as a group in a system, do you really think a continuous acceptance will help? Won't standing up and fighting and may be showing a little bit "ruthlessness" help? Now, Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT seems to be an attempt to normalize your pain or your problem. I am saying, if the lunacy is normalized as a mass hysteria someday, will normal sane people need therapy then? Hence, A need to critique therapy as anti-spiritual seemed necessary. 

Let us talk about Adhyatm now. Adhyatm sets a meta narrative when you are told, you are on your own. You are alone. Now what will you do? Why do you presume that life must bring happiness to you? Why life should be under obligation to make you happy? Isn't this your responsibility? Why do you think pain should make you sad only? Why do you associate with these dichotomies of good and bad in ethics, happy and sad in psychology and existent and non-existent in philosophy? And tells you the permanent human ambiguity of human conformity and human illness. Adhyatm, in this sense, is meta-psychological or creative psychology. It does not teach you to normalize your pain because it is happening to everyone. Neither does it tell to manipulate yourself to a compromised truth like, its ok if it happens to everyone. It gives you paradigm, a kind of philosophical space where you can question, "Is this ok even if it happens to most of us?", "Is my problem be solved permanently?" 

I will mention here of Maharshi Raman, a great saint of this country pre-independence. he gave the concept of psychosynthesis or effectively synthesizing or transforming the self which is previously was under the effect of meta-diseases called, Mind, Intelligence and Ego. 

In western psychology, Mind is said to be the thinking space, Intelligence the accumulated knowledge, and Ego as the self. Raman, in his teachings, somewhat reversed it. He echoed the traditional knowledge of Upanishads, where one considers these as animalistic diseases which human needs to come out in order to realize her humanness. Ego is different from the self. Ego is a disease. Mind is not the thinking space. It is the thinker self. It is and aid, a sort of house help, which aids thinking. Intelligence is precisely ignorance since it is based on non-experience but just read somewhere or logically articulated in language. The human counterpart is intellect, which is realized and actualized knowledge which is based on experience. Deductive and inductive reasoning is critiqued heavily in Eastern Philosophical reasoning. 

Therapy should be encouraged as a temporary medicine, but it is not replacement of a yet permanent solution, which is a healthy transformation of self through Adhyatm. A positivist way of life, Jeevan jeene ka Vidhai Tareeqa".  

ALL HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IS A CHEAP MIMICRY!

Again, a disclaimer. I have not written the title like, "Is all human behavior a cheap mimicry?" I am declaring that human emotions are a cheap mimicry. But who do we mimic? What does this signify? Is there any realness or any justification of emotional impulses anymore?  

A story by Leo Tolstoy, I recall, where a father is crying on the death of his son. Suddenly, he finds a letter of his wife's illicit lover in which it was written that this son, which he was considering all this while his own, is actually an illicit child of their sexual intercourse. All his tears change to fury. He cannot take it anymore. He has been betrayed, at least this is what he feels. 

Now, the wrong question to ask here is whether his anger was justified or not. The right question, however, is what was that drama and that crying all about? He never loved the person, his son. He never loved the son. He loved the "his". He loved him because he was his son. Now, you may ask everyone takes care of his offspring, even animals. So, what do you think we are talking about? Philosophy, Dharma or even Spirituality is this only. To carve out a human out of our animal corpse. 

You don't love your country because it is a good country. You love your country because it is "your". A love which is based on an objective goodness of something does not make it an obsession. Always doubt a nationalist, he may be mimicking love, not actually loving. It is not sensibility but sentimentality. 

Similarly, someone who makes a fuss about an ideal son, an ideal father, an ideal mother, an ideal citizen or for that matter anything ideal for he might have an agenda and he might be doing a mimicry. I am not saying that idealism should be rejected but that it must be judged. Where does this fake empathy and fake sentimentality come from? I claim, sometime in history, a human takes birth. Say, Buddha, Mahaveer, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad anyone near them, an Einstein. Then, people around mimic them, read them, try to copy them. Anything you try to inculcate, any habit, any virtue, it automatically signals you do not possess it. Because, when you have it, you just search it within you, you don't externally imbibe. All I am saying is you cannot genuinely learn anything you already don't possess. Any habit creation, any virtue imbibing is all external and hence fake. All good behavior, display of morality is mere mimicry and hence nothing natural about it. The natural doesn't work. The natural just knows and knowing itself becomes a deed and it is done. Talent doesn't work for a reason. Here I may sound bizarre, but I am solely for talent and not hard work. I think Hardwork today has become a conformist category in the neo-liberal economy. I think more and more there is a need to embrace what you already have rather than striving hard for becoming something you will never fully become but only do a cheap mimicry. And yes, you cannot fake it and make it. Fuck you! 

So, coming back, yes so, all human behavior is a cheap mimicry. From language to emotion and from science to social convention and even mass mentality. Man, as we know it, is a fake. No happy ending this time. Fuck you! thank you for reading. Ok wait, you need to search what you already have. Because you can only become what you already are. Stop bluffing. A teacher cannot become a civil servant. A civil servant can only become a civil servant. A scientist cannot become an engineer. An engineer can only become an engineer. A lawyer can only become a lawyer, may be at times a bad poet but yes. The fact remains, you cannot become anything you already are not. So, stop mimicry. 

MORALLY VULNERABLE 21ST CENTURY MAN!

It is very common among people to bond over negative feelings like jealousy and insecurity. Today's mental health discourse has had many benefits but a few concerns. Today, the traits which were assumed wrong in the traditional ideology like: Jealousy and lust are morally neutralized today. "How dare you judge me?", "how dare you tell me what is wrong in me?", "...As if you are so perfect!". 

The thing is, I believe we have successfully crushed the moral police of the society and rightfully so. And no one should tell other people how an ideal person should be. But don't you think one should strive to be a better person? You might argue that people try. I think they don't. I have reasons to believe so. 

1. The market de-incentivizes morality. Because market rewards merit at any cost and not something which cannot have a market value. 

2. Perversion of morality and moral values by selling them as soft skills. Have you read those books like 48 laws of power, 12 rules of life, how to make friends and other bullshit? Market sells inculcation of moral values for transactional purposes. But is it even moral if there is profit involved. 

3. We have normalized evil intent and market has normalized hatred and antagonisms. 

4. When market psychology converts us, it is mostly sub-conscious and hence nobody calls it an ideology whereas a communist or someone who has an ideology based on a discourse, the person is criticized for having ideology. 

5. Perversion towards being financially and socially successful person. You are forced to become entrepreneurs of your life. Realize your true potential, toil 14 hours a day etc. are some messages that market wants to teach you. You have been made your own boss. This had led to your life being converted into a manufactured product. And this personalization of human enterprises has led to inner corruption. Victory at any cost. 

I have been a prey to ordinary people's cruelty when you call them out for where they lack. Today, humans are the least in history, susceptible to change. They have been rude, cruel, judgmental towards me when my intentions were all in for their welfare. Shouldn't truth be worshipped as it is however harsh it is? Say, I have mentally challenged parents, why should I be ashamed of it? Why should I conceal this fact? I should embrace this version of truth as it is. Truth if not worshiped as it is prone to cause cognitive dissonance.

But, this will not be able to deter my spirits. Because, I have the moral courage of my ancestors of this land. I recall Tulsidas who announced a fight against the Brahminical patriarchy by these lines which mean, 

    "I will not marry my son to anyone's daughter, 

        If I am impure, I will not wish to demolish anyone's caste (sarcastically),

            I will beg and eat and I will sleep in a mosque, 

                Neither take a penny nor give one to any!" 

I have the same attitude. Socialization for the sake of socialization is not acceptable to me. friends just to avoid mental health problems and loneliness will not be acceptable. I will suffer from mental illness, but I will not sacrifice my value system. I can die for my truth. I cannot compromise, whether I will be required to lose friends, family or even myself. I think that is what Adhyatm has also taught me. 

Kabir das says, 

           "Kabira khada bazaar mein, Liye luqaathi haath, 

            Jo ghar jaare aapna, so chale humare saath!"

    Or Kabir das stands in the middle of the market, challenging the market. Spirituality demands people who are even ready to burn their own houses if it demands, forget living a transactional life. Yes, I come from this school of thought. Is it easy to be a spiritual person? It is a war against oneself and the world. People use it for peace of mind. It is not for peace. It is for what. 

Jesus says, 

            "I do not bring peace, I bring war. War of brother against brother, son against father and daughter against mother. If you cannot hate your father, you cannot love me, if you cannot hate your mother, you cannot love me!" 

Precisely! Precisely! 

Loneliness! I accept you for I have conviction. 

A READING OF "MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH" (PART 1/N)

I will be honest here in a pretending manner. I have read this book two times already since childhood. The reason why I was drawn to Gandhi was because of hatred. My family has an ideological hatred with this guy. The first book I ever read was "Why I Killed Gandhi" by Nathuram Godse and it is a celebrated book in my household till now. I really hated him but also intrigued how can a person like him (in hate) fool an entire population? Then I read this book in 10th standard. I did not understand the book for the first time. I found it similar to morality textbooks we read in RSS schools. I was disturbed by the level of confessions in there. After some time, my grandfather burned that book scolding me why I brought this book in the first place. 

My second reading of that book was in my graduation when I took that book to understand the mindset of the man after I read about his conflicts with Ambedkar. I was in Hugh influence of Ambedkar at that time and that reading was also a contemptuous reading. In a nutshell, I never got a chance to read the man without pre-judging him for what his deeds were. 

Reading a person's autobiography should be very intricate. It is sort of like doing a chemistry experiment. First you cleanse your ideological pallet to at least remove your prejudices. Second, you do not accept what he writes on face value. You think, try to find out where he comes from. What might have led him to do or believe in a particular thing? Even if he mentions a reason of why he did a particular thing, you do not accept it. How does he know why he did something? Nobody knows that completely. Third, you look for what he has not written, but has revealed in such a manner that you can deduce it. Reading someone might, thus, lead to a better understanding of him than his understanding about himself. 

So, I have decided to again read the man without pre-hate. Till now I have read the introduction. Let us put down my observations. 

1. In the introduction, he seems very reluctant on writing his biography. His autobiography is also not a proper one, but one where he describes his experiments with spirituality. One thing is sure. He has avoided a lot to write it. He could not find time in Yervada jail to write because he made a schedule for study there. 

2. He accepted the idea that autobiography is a western idea. It is peculiar of Gandhi. He creates this divide all the time and wants to create an Indic way of looking at things. Also, he views himself as someone who rejects the earlier views of himself. 

3. He felt a need to write it nevertheless because he wanted to make the world aware of his spiritual quests and experiments as well along with his political ones. Unlike the latter, the former was unknown to west. 

4. Interestingly enough, he wants to generalize spiritual politics in some sense. He says the essence of religion is morality. He does not understand religion as such. He has an external view of religion. You cannot and should not say that the essence of religion is morality. Why I believe this has two grounds. First, it gives a ground for the evil to play. The communal forces then try to enforce their version of morality and many times, in that contest, they win. Second, if you are a serious student of Hinduism or for that matter even Islam, you will understand religion was never about morality. It gives a version of complete ontological reality, a sort of complete map to the universe and your role in it. Thus, it teaches you, as an outcome, to decide what is moral according to you. Religion in this sense, is meta-moral, that is, more than morality sermons, rather it is cultivating a sense of acting in a big film, moral or not, you decide. 

5. He calls west, "the civilized world". The underquotes has an undertone of irony and taunt. he does not believe that the west is civilized at all. This was also apparent from his book, "Hind Swaraj". 

6. I have added only those observations that I have found worth mentioning. Once, he mentions in the introduction an example of the story of Vasistha and Vishvamitra. He does not mention the whole story but let us dive into that. This might be philosophically interesting. 

The story of Vasistha and Vishwamitra is that, Vashista, himself a Bramaharshi, a kind of title one gets in Hinduism when one is enlightened to a certain extent. He used to call Vishwamitra only Rajashri, or a saint of the kingdom, a lower title than Bramaharshi. Vishwamitra performed a harsh Tapasya by virtue of which, Brahma, the creator himself, came to him. Vishwamitra asked for the title of bramaharshi. Brahma said, only if Vashista calls you a brahmaharshi. He goes to Vashista. Vashista keeps saying rajaharshi. This pisses Vishwamitra off. He killed all cows of Vashista. Then, Brahma come again and says, how can you be Brahmaharshi when you can't control anger and get pissed off so easily. The learning being that the spiritual person should be humbler than dust. I believe, here we, me and Bapu are in complete sync. Just, the humbleness should not be goal oriented, that is, to get enlightenment in return but genuine conviction. 

Interestingly enough, this story is not known by many people. His reading of Ramayana and other scriptures is very thorough, a sort of like Brahmans. Giving example like this also shows two things. His fascination with enlightenment and peace. Second, about his fascination with learned men. Also, humbleness as a virtue is not the actual teaching of the story. The real teaching should be meta-humbleness. That is, it is not just be humble. It is the very reason you cannot attain wisdom is because you already think you deserve it. You don't. Even if you achieve something, even worldly, the world does not owe anything to you. So, no need for arrogant tantrums. Calm your tits. Sorry for the vulgarity but this is the precise teaching and hence must be said in the above language. 

            I will come up with blogs giving my observations about this book, this man and Hinduism. I sign off.  

 

AS GALILEO SAID, "...AND YET IT MOVES".

People around the world and around me as well accuse philosophers, theorists, problem conceptualizers as for emphasizing on the bad and not acknowledging the good. People who know me, know me as one who sees only the negative and cannot speak anything non-nuanced. They say, I have a bad habit of philosophizing everything or rather theorizing everything. This, I see as the same accusation as Noam Chomsky once did of Slavoj Zizek. He said, "What he does is theory! Theory means nothing today!"  

I feel a weird analogy between these accusations and the accusations of the Catholic church on Galileo when he gave the heliocentric model. Isn't this the same line of story? The church said," NO FACT CHECKING PLEASE!" and People say to theorists, "No theory please!" People somewhat think that they are otherwise living a happy life and then a theorist comes and creates a fiction of problems that don't really exist. But the fact remains, Galileo begs pardon and says,"...and yet, indeed it moves!" The fact is a fact. The reality is reality. You have to face it whether you want to theorize it or not. 

Why are people so reluctant to theory? What is it that theory provides or creates which is so much of a nuisance? and A weird phenomena occurs when a theorist gets a critical acclaim, people start going overboard to fetishize it. 

RELUCTANCE TO THEORY IS THE REAL FICTION YOU DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE 

When Gautam Buddha said," Life is suffering!" There were two kinds of people. One who made him God, fetishized him, and one who disagreed with him, said that he is a negativist. One profound thing about theoretic conclusions is that you cannot disagree with it. Life is what it is. You cannot disagree with it. If someone ever finds a profound truth like this, there is no scope of disagreement with it even on grounds of debate. You might debate it and you might even win the debate, yet Buddha will go saying, "...and yet, Life is suffering!" The problem with us is that we have relativized truth too much. to the extent that we do not even now wish to find the truth. Truth is the easiest available thing in the market. And when something goes so cheap in market, it means it is 1st copy of the truth and not the truth itself. 

People like fiction because reality is nothing, a sort of understood presupposition and yet when the fictions start controlling us, we cannot escape the fictions now. We feel, how are we locked in the stories we created for ourselves? The truth remains, one who doesn't embrace reality is bound to live in fictions even if it is self-created. 

WHAT DOES THEORY PROVIDE TO MAN? 

    Theory, any conceptualization, give births to numerous notions and concepts. These notions and concepts form a plane of reality which maps the whole reality on itself. Each notion and concept work like a set of coordinates in the plane to describe different locations of phenomena from the central fixed origin of the theory. This is a weird parallel between theory and coordinate geometry. 

It provides man, reality a bit deconstructed, one which is easily understandable to him. Why do we need theorized reality in the first place? Do you know the inherent discrepancy between our eyes seeing and our mind comprehending? We think in linear fashion and yet our eyes perceive things logarithmically. We listen one thing at a time and yet the loudness we measure in a log scale. Our senses have an inherent incompatibility with each other. It is roughly accurate to see and acknowledge something. Moreover, we see a very narrow reality as it is. Rest everything is fictionalized, limited by senses etc. and hence extrapolated and interpolated just for convenience. This extrapolated and interpolated dimension of reality often creates problems, barring our vision to see things as it is. We can say, since many things we do not know, we try to interpret, and we interpret wrong and hence create hells for ourselves. Theory, or rather interpretation is necessary in a proper manner because subconsciously, in order to live, you are interpolating and extrapolating reality already. Zizek, by the way, calls this extrapolation and interpolation, Ideology. So, since you are already doing that, you might consider doing it properly and get out of it. So, theory is necessary to eventually come out of it. Going to Lanka was important to eventually come out of it for Rama. Sorry for the mythical reference but if I am allowed to continue, it is also necessary to burn the already existing edifice of theory (Lanka), and for that It is necessary to fly and most certainly to build your own theory (A Bridge). 

PEOPLE FEAR THEORY BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE A STAKE IN THEIR MISERY.

 People enjoy being sad, even being depressed and even committing suicides. No wonder attempt to kill yourself is a crime. Of course, these crimes are highly philosophical. People like their problems because they might hate the solution, because the solution is painful. In fear of medicine, People start loving their symptoms. Love thy symptom as thyself, but then don't complain. If you ask Buddha, he will say, truth as it is. You don't like it? Then might as well don't cry. Love thy symptom as thyself, as Zizek would say. Do not wish to come out of it. But we do, because we fetishize even that. We are perverts. We are perverts of life and its fictions. A theorist is your therapist, but you do not want therapy. You want to enjoy your mental illness. Fair enough, but then don't pretend. Stop fooling. Get up. Enjoy your mental asylum. 

SHORT STORY: 2 RUPEE WORTH OF VILLAGES

 You know true fiction is in the facts. The way facts become fictionalized during the process of saying it is actually the place of sublimation, that is where, objective truth actually becomes subjective. Among these sublime fictionalized facts, are inter-generational stories that one generation narrates to the next generations. These stories serve dual aim, the parent generation wants to convey the generational wisdom to the young generation, the second aim, which I take out of it, it can represent the histories of the Sub-altern that got lost because they were not that eminent to be known. History should not be limited to the major events and the dialectical macro-movements but rather some stories which has no contributing content to major scheme of things, but they do matter because it is fun to read them, know them and smile about them. 

One such story My grandfather says every time I taunt him why he wears torn and wearied out clothes when he has decent clothes in the cupboard. He talks about his uncles who were apparently very brilliant academically. Let us begin the story now. 

In the village of Dhanaahi, in the district Aurangabad in Bihar, lived a Zamindar family of the Bhumihaar caste, that is my ancestry. "Dhanahi", the word literally means a place where money comes to. Ironically, the place was Drought ridden for many years during the colonial rule defeating the message of the name. This, once well off Bhumihar family faced a lot of distress but the leadership of the family of strong enough to not only survive the blow but also to save many lives of their village. At least, this is what My grandfather told me. Of course I know, the times we are talking about, the conditions of the poor and specially the Dalits were so bad and our ancestors, supposedly were not very helpful to them. Nevertheless, I think this village has always been a one caste village, that is, a Bhumihaar majority village. This caste is a dominant caste in Bihar and always in a power struggle with the Rajputs and with the advent of Lalu Yadav regime, with the Yadavs and socialists and communists. 

The protagonists of the story are three people, My grandfather's elder uncle. "Badka Kaka", the uncle next to him, "Majhila Kaka", and at last, "Chhotka Kaka". As decent grandchildren, we grew up listening to the valorous stories of these ancestors. They never really interested me for a long time, since these all seemed false and just glorified them. But, this small instance, really left a mark which I will document here. 

So, these three were very brilliant. Their peers used to tell my grandfather, then a little child, that they could even have become Barristers. Barristers used to be the epitome of every job back then, for obvious reasons. Gandhiji to Babasaheb to Nehru, all of them were Barristers. But why they didn't become. Let us see. 

That was the day of their admission to the college for bachelors. Three of them were very excited for their admission. Each showed a striking academic caliber from a young age and had intellectual capacities of different types. One could memorize anything very quickly, the other had great calculative abilities and the last and the eldest of them all, had great interpretative abilities and could find the undertone of every written text in Magahi or in Hindi. They were with their parent, who was an illiterate person. They went for the interview and passed with flying colors. Then came a point where fees were being discussed. Two rupees a year was the fees and in three years and Six rupees they could finish their BA in those days. It was I believe 1909-10. Their father said to the headmaster, "Thik hey Master Saheb, Hum Bhejam laikan ke Chutti ke baad!" or "Ok Headmaster, I will send my children after the vacation!". Coming back from the college, on their way to home, their father said to their children, "Ka Padh ke karbe, Chal 2 rupaiya mein ta Gaanv ke Gaanv nilaam howa hayi, Chal Gaanv le de hiyau, Raja ho jaihein aajhey!" or "What you guys will do after studying? In 2 rupees I can buy you villages of which you can become local kings from now on!" And these guys obeyed. That was the end of one generation of education in just one decision. Later it was the next generation and that also, only my grandfather, who thought of his own education and came out of his village to do a job. His decision is the reason why I might be writing this blog. I think about it. Were those villages worth only two rupees? The opportunity cost of them were too higher. It costed them not only their own education but also me, one generation worth of educational capital. 
Why did they obey? Why did they give up the pursuit of studies? My grandfather told me, "Because they were very obedient!" I think they really thought they got a good deal of 2 rupees village as compared to 2 rupees worth of education. Anyhow, one thing is clear, the cost of education of these three people were not just 2 rupees. 

EITHER TRUTH OR SILENCE

                     

   "If Truth shall kill me, let me die!" 

The real quote is, "If truth shall kill them, let them die." But this is not what a true Adhyatmika, the true Dharmic person would say. This is not what Socrates would say. A true Dharmic man will die for truth. He will take it on him. 

Let me ask you a question, what is more important for you? Truth or family relations? Truth or friendships? Truth or career? Truth or desires? Truth or your best dreams? Moral relativists will try to fog it under personal choice but let me make this clear to you that I am a no nuance guy. At least, not at inappropriate places. The reality is most of us can sell our truths just to save some relations. But ask some person who just understood his true gender identity and now has to fight everybody including his family. He has to confess otherwise he will suffocate that he is gay or bisexual or anything for that matter. This is the case with a dharmic person who is bound by the truth. This truth can be the ultimate one or rather smaller ones based on honest confessions of day-to-day life. The fact remains, it is so valuable that it cannot be sold for some or even any or all relationships. 

People who live a Dharmic life often tend to live alone. His peers leave him, his family thinks he is rude. His friends think he is non-compromising. His society thinks he is lunatic. Every step is a blister. Every moment is a curse for that person. Socrates has to drink poison once for sticking to his truth. He has to drink it daily, every moment. 

 I believe something which Socrates said, "A life unexamined is a life not worth living!" I have examined something in these 23 years of my life. I cannot survive without truth. I cannot live without it even if it costs me my dearest of relations and I have to rot in hell for it. If I have to suffer in tortuous conditions, If I have to burn in darkest of dungeons, If I have to be rotten in lakhs of leeches even then I cannot sell my truth. 

 But why? Why this stubbornness? Why not just keep everyone's heart and just lie. A happy lie let it be. The reason I cannot is because I remember the days of my childhood. The days I lived with my parents. Toxic as they may be, they used to fight all the time. Mistrust, Lies and all of it were involved and I, merely 4-5 used to hide under my bed the whole night many a times sleeping there. I was alone with my horrible horrible truth. The truth that there is no one which you can call truly yours in this world. You are intrinsically alone. Next instance, in schools, till the time I succeeded academically in school, it was I think till 3rd grade, I was alone. Nobody knew how I could not understand the ways of the world, what crap the teachers used to teach, how the schools work like prisons with discipline and punish attitude. How the loneliness of the ability to see it all made me a solitary child, and how people of my age were busy doing dumb things. They did not know that a self-reflecting child is within them searching his identity among them. Nobody was like me. Nobody had no parents, and nobody could understand my situation. Next, Class 11th, How alienated in a room which was locked by the hostel bully of mine and I could not go to school and was locked for 8 hours alone in a room with no-one to listen to my voice and help me. And numerous other instances when I was forced to face my truth, time and again. Very late in my life did I understood, the concept of "Head-on collision with the truth, and die for it or embrace it". 

There was never really a choice. There was no one for me other than my truth. The truth, naked as it was, I learnt gradually was so beautiful. So, tell me, after all this, do you really think a guy like me will not die for his truth? 

I will die for it. Either the people around me and the whole world will have to embrace it or there is no point saying it. The place where my truth is not respected, I leave that place immediately. I have left earlier as well, friends, family, my own parents and even at times myself. Class 2nd when I confessed that I was amongst the mischief creators when my friend saved me from punishment and lied to the teacher. I was the one who admitted that I have given a wrong answer at the zonal Science quiz where the stakes were so high, a tie breaker question in which the team opposite to us has blatantly cheated by manipulating the judges. I have never left my truth anytime in my life. People who know me, and for that matter, there is nobody who knows with depth, what iceberg Vibhat is, know this. 

Bottomline, either I will speak my mind, or I will keep silence. The silence that chills every spine. The silence which shouts at the duality of the world. The silence, which is heaven for me and hell for them. Every word not spoken by me; they will pay for it. Every word not said, will be a punishment not delayed. I conclude with Rabindranath Tagore. 

"

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

"

UNMOTIVATED WORK: TEACHING SPIRITUALITY TO SO CALLED SPIRITUAL PEOPLE

 

It has been a long time I have been in the Adhyatmika discourse. Srimadh Bhagvat Geeta, Ashtavakra Geeta, Tao te Ching and Dhammapada ka a few discourses I have been exposed to by my Guru, Osho Rajneesh. Along with that, as my Guru said to me once, choose one of these discourses as your master discourse and follow that. As I found myself closer to the discourse of Buddhism, I started Vipassana meditation. So, in a nutshell, this is till now, a summary of my "Adhyatmika Discourse". As I do not like the way Aadhyatma is presented by its practitioners in India, I have tried numerously to clarify it to my friends and family although it was all in vain because, I think they either reduce it to some high heavenly principle or they disregard it as some religious dogma. Most of my peers consider spirituality as a philosophical discourse. Others think it is a diversion of mind from the main tasks of life such as career making. I have certain points in my mind which I will try to put in a pointwise manner, namely, 

1. Spirituality is not a tool to calm your anxiety.  

    Most people try to calm themselves using religious or spiritual sermons. The most famous of them all is "The unmotivated action" or "Nishkama Karm yoga". I believe nobody among my peers understand it. To claim that I understand it might seem as being arrogant, but this does not change the reality. I do understand it. Let us try to state here. 

2. Can you do something at all without any motivation or anticipation of result in mind? 

    Of course, this is not normal behavior. Most people think using spirituality, you can be a mentally healthy person. No, this is not healthy at all. I mean it is, but not in the same way as you like it to be. You think a spiritual person to be excellent in whatever he does, a sort of extraordinarily successful person. I say, it is actually the most anti-spiritual one can get. In reality, A person in Nishkama Karm Yog, will be quenched in whatever he does or whatever he gets. He is not wishing to be successful. He is just thankful that at least he got this opportunity to work. So, the work becomes the result in itself, and it satisfies the needs of the person even before the results come out. 

A Nishkami person is a person satisfied already. Even if he fails, he remains satisfied. But ask yourself, are you a Nishkami Person? Can we even in your dreams escape the causality of everyday life you have developed for yourself? You work for a job; you study to succeed in an exam. You study to make your father proud. You want to be successful in order that you stop your father from toiling at work. As sweet these intentions might seem, as long as they are there, you will remain unsatisfied. 

3. Intentions, however good they sound, are reasons for you being miserable. 

    Many people think spirituality will make them an efficient employee. No, it will not. It has no obligations to help you in studies or at work. As long as you are doing something for some result, and you derive your efficiency from there, you are bound to be miserable. You, as a worldly person, are supposed to be progressive, but nature is not progressive. Progressiveness and repressiveness are man-made attributes. Rivers do not flow to supply water; it flows precisely because that is the only thing it can do. Trees are not there to serve you with fruits. They are there because they can be there. There are abundant circumstances for their existence. Nature is like that Government employee that does work because it is office time and there is really nothing else that can be done. "Zindagi mein aaye hain toh jee lete hain,  that is precisely the attitude of the spiritual person. That is why, spirituality is hard. As the protagonist of the film "Ankhon Dekhi" says, "Life enjoy kar rahe hain, aur option kya hai?" 

4. Spirituality is hard 

     Most people, including my peers, think spirituality is a cakewalk and that this will make them a better professional in their jobs. It is not obligated to be so. It is actually the next step to Nihilism. The moment you start seeing "Fizool-ness" or "uselessness of desire itself", that is the time, Eastern philosophy supplies you with practices such as Vipassana, which have just one aim, to find a joy in purely existing, rather than a continuous zeal to become something. What is there to become? What can you become other than what you already are. But, as I say and conclude, "Ab ye sasur inko samajh aaye tab na, ye saale spirituality ke chode, Bhagwaan tumhare baap ka naukar toh hai nahi ki tum aankh band karke puja karega toh tera kaamna pura kar dega". 

The most spiritual poem is what I will end it here, Ironically, it is by a Communist Poet, Pablo Neruda. 

                

Keeping Quiet Pablo Neruda
		Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let's not speak in any language; let's stop for a second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would not look at his hurt hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about... If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Now I'll count up to twelve. and you keep quiet, and I will go.

VIOLENT CONFIDENCE: A PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION

 Recently, I have achieved a successful culmination of a series of observations that I would like to present here. It is about something I like to call Violent confidence. 

Have you ever been fat-shamed? Have you ever been subjected to a comment for being non-usual? If you have, congratulations, you will understand this phenomenon easily. Mostly, we are bound to be confused about life. Life, in a nutshell, is like a novel that we begin to read from the middle. We are born in a particular socio-cultural and economic setup. Our features, from how we speak to how we look, is governed by natural and cultural factors we have mostly no agency over. But, because of the Hegemonic structure of the society with respect to any characteristics, namely, a particular feature, a particular demeanor etc. We feel an obligation and a sort of pressure to be like that. To speak in a particular way, to look in a particular way, etc. '

Violent confidence is a kind of subjective violence, a term coined by Slavoj Zizek, at least I read in his volume on Violence, where once, you get convinced of the fact that you have achieved that beauty standard (the hegemonic value) of society, you display certain kind of confidence which is lethal, which is violent, mostly to your own mental health but also to others. This mental violence is caused by the fact that you have forced into something you actually are not, but you want to be, because that is the standard hegemony. In this process, you perform a ritualistic violence on yourself. This suffering that you did on yourself, when you see people unaware of the quality that you possess, because they do not subscribe to this hegemonic value system, you project a sort of violent display of confidence, through mockery or a laugh or may be a smirk that you did to someone. This shows, mostly that you are mentally unhealthy, you have tortured yourself so much that you now want the otherwise happy people to know this and hence suffer. 

This can be highly internalized way of living where the person preforming this violence might not even acknowledge the fact that he is mentally a violent person. Most people might argue, it is not their problem is someone feels violated because you show confidence. But they will need to understand that it is bad for them only. If the confidence is not coming from a safe place of emotions of your mental space, you are actually under-confident, insecure and petty but you are trying to hide it. You are subjected to the Dunning-Kruger effect equivalent in life where the confidence is just a precursor to a Hugh depression about to come. 

For example: Our society has a hegemonic value system about dumbness and intelligence. People who are intelligent are considered better. Ok, no harm in that. But do you know how much insecure it makes an average child? Some who are average always feel threatened by those who struggled and may be gained a bit intelligence and even they who are intelligent behave like intellectual bullies. Someone pronounced a word wrong and there are grammar nazis correcting them, someone has a rural accent, and you see some smirking faces on her back. What is this? People who do this are mentally sick and they need therapy as soon as possible. In this society where mental violation is recognized, this is something every person must consider. Are we violating someone's self-esteem? Are we reproducing the same mental torture that we did to ourselves? Of course, any progress needs a certain amount of struggle, but why to expect that the other person must recognize our struggle. and last question, are not we are being petty exhibitionists if we are displaying confidence on intellect and features which is less about our own created but is a function of socio-cultural and economic coordinates in society. 

Would you have been this intelligent, if you were from a lower caste? provided that education keenness, is a function of social and economic well-being. People lack empathy. People lack sociological sensibility. People are petty and, in this sense, morally ignorant. People, who do this, we should make them realize that this is indeed a fault of theirs. If we want a mentally healthy society, people should need to take care of behavior standards, what are professional spaces and how to behave there. Not every place is your safe space. 

I REFUSE TO BE YOUR SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE!

                                                            NOT THIS 

Javed Akhtar, in a recent speech of his, was asked about the recent film, "Animal", to which he had replied, "Hero of any generation represents two things of that generation: The contemporary aspiration and that contemporary morality." The Protagonist, and not the Hero, as Hero is a word with Fascist tendencies. The Protagonist, in any age represents the current aspiration as well as current morality. 

Who is the Protagonist of today? Today's society is confused about the contemporary morality; however, it was never ever surer about contemporary aspirations. Someone wants to be a millionaire, someone wants to be an academic, someone wants to be a bureaucrat, someone wants to earn respect in society. One thing common about these aspirations is that these are extremely individual centric. It underlies within itself an extremely dangerous fear of the other, be it of another religion, another caste or even the state for that matter. The more and more our Border security is growing, the more fearful we have become of our internal otherness that is the result of our partisan politics. The protagonist of today, is a selfish aspirational man, who may be, because of his lower middle-class upbringing, is insecure about his job prospects and might be preparing for a government exam because of the monetary security needs that the job provides. This protagonist constantly gets compared with his peers of the society and this has made him extremely sensitive towards societal criticism. His individual aspirations have lost a touch of communitarian consciousness, and a kind of obnoxious self-centeredness has taken its place. He wants to be a government servant, not to serve, but because it is an empty aspiration, filled in him, by an ego that he was academically smart and that he is a good social capital for his father's aspirations who work as a labor in the labor-supply or may be a tuition teacher. Aspiration for aspiration's sake is precisely the definition of narcissistic tendencies. The intellectual and monetary insecurity has taken over the curiosity and the conscience to change the wrongs of the society, eventually corrupting the modern-day morality to be a, "Apna Apna Dekho" morality or "Tumko Baitha Ke Khila Thody Dega koi" morality. In short, the neo-liberal mindset has made every proletariat a bourgeois with conscience. He dreams to be a bourgeois someday. I am not accusing him for that. I am accusing the aspirational psychology that has corrupted the contemporary morality. All his present concerns are about his family and friends. If he is concerned about something wrong in society, it is to have an effect on the judge judging him in the debate competition he took part or the interviewer he wants to impress. Individual aspirations have killed morality today. 

Some might argue that no, these are not that bad times. There are still good people left. People do charity and all. To them I will say, this is exactly my point. What is the difference between Charity and Welfare. Have you ever thought about it? Charity is individual centric. The person who does charity, does it with a superiority complex and a certain condescension hidden in the very concept of it. A rich person pities the poor. I say, it is your guilt that is making you do that. I am not in Favour of this spiritual charity. Because this is precisely the charity which makes the poor believe that we are destined to be like this, and this man is God. On the other hand, Welfare, my friends, is done by people who do it for their own duty. They do it, because they are paid for it. They do not take the credit for it. Ideally, they are not supposed to at least. Their return is the salary after a month. The servant remains a servant and the poor feels obliged to the state which is an invisible machinery for him. Do you know what does it mean when a poor person starts worshipping another person who he, sub-consciously knows that he is no different from him? He starts losing respect for himself. If he is the same as me, a human, still he has more wealth, what might be the reason? I am lesser human. This sub-human conscience is what we are talking about. It is found in all semi-urban to rural places. 

What is the way out of this neo-liberal trap? This system is bribing you with individual aspirations. Refuse! I will prefer not to! I will prefer not to be your Slumdog millionaire. As the title of the book, "The Adivasi will not dance", I want to begin a consciousness among the poor, "The poor will not be "Sada Jeevan Ucha Vichar", I will not be your Slumdog millionaire who after receiving bait from you will give a humble speech about my struggles and how I, from my childhood, was an extraordinary child. I will be arrogant. I will not listen to your praises." Why? Because my struggles are not exclusive. My people have struggled with me. They had their own systemic struggles. Hence, anything lesser than emancipation will not be celebrated. This, I claim, should be the attitude of today's Hero, Today's protagonist. A victor who prefers not to celebrate his struggles in a bourgeois celebration party where his achievement is being celebrated. 

MY RITUALISTIC DISAGGREEMENTS WITH MICHAEL FOUCAULT

It was a common sight in Indian Universities to see Marxists and Communists all around. Now a days, Indian universities see a shift to the right and a beyond right leanings. What I mean by a beyond right leaning is the deviation from the binary and an undermining attempt to mock the binary. Now, to clarify, not a supporter of Binary either but in this context the alignment of people with this kind of thought process entails behind itself a person whose Intellectual caliber I am most attracted these days. I say, Michel Foucault, is the Universal of the particularities that we see today, the path to the pathless and the path breakers who deliberately deliberate. 

In earlier times, it was quite easier. You had a Bourgeois ideology and thinkers used to critique it. Then came, Foucault, who saw the critiques as the symptoms and not the cures. This demolished the binary of the oppressed and oppressor and in some sense the binary itself took the place of the oppressor with every individual left bewildered with the fact that they themselves contribute to the oppression by mediating the discourse of this binary oppression. Also, a staunch attack on the Universality of attainable knowledge and the Knowledge itself as the source to ignorance combined with a push to particular truths and particularities has made it the discourse of discourses and hence the source of all ideologies today. How weird is the fact that an attempt to delineate the universal made Foucault the universal. You might say, Foucault is big but not universal. To which I will respond he is. To condemn the binary is not now a liberal or ignorant position. It is now the post-modern and it is assumed as the new good. 

My admirations for Foucault's works begin with his work "Madness and civilization". My Family, having a history of mental disorders, I could find myself through the Asylums where I saw my father, My Uncle, My Aunt and the worst of all, My mother. Although, I admire the man, but I know the ritual as a philosopher to critique the dominant ideology of the times towards a freer society. Why I am deliberately using the world 'Ritual' here because I believe, analogous to the epistemological break that Marx had, 

"Philosophers until now, have only critiqued the ideology because they felt it is necessary to create a freer society. They real intent, if I deliberately provoke, is to do it ritualistically to keep it moving. Keep what moving? The ideology! As it cannot be eliminated. It is ever encompassing. But the more dynamic the ideology is, the less time the ideology has to affect a man, the less oppressive it can be. In the information age, ideology should not be like a stone inscription, rather it should become like a newspaper. Old within a day and new at the doorstep." 

Many questions arise. I know. I say, let us keep it at hand. As a Staunch Hegelian myself, I believe in the historical movement of discourse. Ideology itself, being the dominant discourse of anytime, and mostly hidden, is whatever you do, say or believe or pretend to not say, do or believe. Since, it is very clear that the paradox with the critique of ideology program that Frankfurt school philosophers and many others sought to do in order to make a post-ideological society, went always to failure. It is very clear in the works of Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou the sublime nature of ideology which keeps it alive in the most brutal and critical atmosphere. Ideology is the Cockroach whose shell can survive nuclear radiations. Now is the need to create a better normative goal of all hitherto humanities and I seek to start it with critiquing the most genuine and admirably original thinkers of the last century. 

Do I Really disagree with Foucault? 

           No. If I have to answer in a word. But there are nuances yet to be reinterpreted. I believe, it is one of the many interpretations of Foucault that Foucault himself did of his work. It is a common sense that only the person lying within the corpse of the person can know the person. It is also currently the dominant ideology, Realize your true self, your individuality and other Bhang bhosda. I believe the contrary. There is no true self, descriptively visible to self. Maybe you can see it but the moment you describe it, you are describing an alien. If there is, it is just someone describing some other person. Description is inherently alien. You simply cannot interpret an author. It is an extension of the Derridian Thought, "The Author is dead". I say, "The Author always plagiarizes and hence there are always co-authors." So, maybe you can understand Foucault better than Foucault itself. Let that possibility be open. 

So, what are my Ritualistic disagreements with Foucault? 

1. The Demolition of the Universal

        Yes, I said it. I do not like his ontological attack on ontology itself and a press on the Episteme. I believe, it is beyond human to know the ontology, hence, Episteme is the only way. Different knowledge systems it is. But to say that Universal categories are non-existent and invented by man and has no real existence and it is in a way, oppressive, is a wrong conclusion of a wrong premise. 

I agree here with Zizek's idea of an incomplete ontology. But no Ontology at all, come on. I see, the world as it is, is of course fallacious but the world is not there only and the structure in itself is not a human discovery, but a human invention is where I do not agree. I think on the question of the Discovery vs the invention, Man has to always invent his discovery. But why? 

I think the reason behind this is that Man cannot comprehend the discovered. The critical faculty will question the episteme of the source itself. And the Source is always silent. Man, helpless in his accord, invents his own discovery by interpreting it. See, for instance, I am not saying that These structures of society and sexuality are God made or has a source other than man. I am saying, even if man is the source, he does not know from where did these come from? What do they entail? I would not like to dwell on the older questions like: How these structures oppress man and how were the invented and so on! I will ask newer questions in the line of Zizek, why only these forms and structures and not any different? I do not agree with the hidden assumption of every Philosopher before me, including Foucault and his analysis, that Man has cruel intent in creation of these structures to oppress and so on. I think, it is the sheer incompleteness of man, a sort of broken incomplete ontology of self that makes him work only within the interpretive paradigm, the inventive paradigm. 

In other words, Philosophers earlier than me thought Man misinterpreted his every invention as a discovery or every interpretation as a fact, but, actually, Man can actually only interpret, He cannot know. Knowledge is not possible. Absolute knowledge, in Hegelian terms and unlike his thought, cannot be possible. I see, but I do not know if it is what everyone sees. I know, but I do not know whether knowledge is so universal. But it is better to guess that Knowledge should be universal, but I cannot know it because I am restricted. A school only teaches the curriculum. Beyond curriculum knowledge is not possible. Knowledge beyond the curriculum of language and senses is not knowledge, however, there is a strong possibility that it exists. 

2. The Demolition of some Mosques which shouldn't have happened!

    I believe, some sacred concepts that Foucault broke should not have been broken as universal because they had utility. Human nature, to be specific. Human nature, even if it does not exist, has a reason to exist. How will you explain the society formation of the world, Humans associate just like animals do? really? I do not agree. I do agree partially where there are contentions of Human nature.it is very deceiving at times. But I still believe Blind demolition of categories could have been avoided by creation of Nuance. The philosophy of nuance is something I had in my mind from childhood. I believe Human nature is made very nuanced and human comprehension, very naive. So, I conclude, It is not like, Human nature does not exist, but it is ungraspable in its entirety because of limitations of human comprehensions. 

I have to work on these concepts more in future a more depth reading of Foucault is required. I believe I can even critique his analysis of historicity of sexuality and the further analysis and how it has affected the modern-day sexuality discourse. I even take some inspirations from his work of "The Archaeology of Knowledge". The only difference I have with him here, is that every Philosopher keeps himself as the breaking point of a symptom of the structure. Like Marx, Foucault also forgot here, that he is also building a monument of knowledge system which can be epistemized, if I use a word non-existent, I mean his analysis is not beyond the Archaeology of Knowledge. Also, it might help us to understand how information and intellectual property today possess a great problem to Capitalism and how it can serve as a breaking point. Here also, The inspiration of thought stems from Zizek. I conclude, with hopes of working in the Foucauldian frame and eventually demolish this structure as well. The structure of post-structure deserves a fall and what will come after it, is a mystery, might be a post-post structure or return to a structure alternative. We do not know yet. One thing is sure, the path to this will be to make the post-structural discourse assume a structure. Make the post-structuralist realize that he cannot escape a structure, however hard he might try, just like you cannot generate random numbers. 

I Depart, here is a reminder quote for me, by me.

"Don't repeat the mistake of the past philosophers. Do not assume you are someone special and other than the tradition of philosophers. Make a theory within which your own theory can be kept. This self-consistency, if possible, should suffice mankind for a while. It will be a long-lasting theory, if not the last theory." 

EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE

I wrote it after a sweet experience of is-ness after a Bhajan. Life, as it is, seems quite incomprehensible to us. Too much of everything. Too much of things, too much of people, too much of emotions and too much of reason. The best description of life, as it is, should be Everywhere, everything, all at once. Things exist, and from those things arise man which can comprehend itself and its is-ness. 

Is-ness is a quality of the man. The capability to be able to acknowledge how existing feels like, it is a unique feature of the man. Stones cannot describe is-ness. From is-ness, a need for meaning arises. A dire need to formulate why we are able to comprehend so much. 

From meanings, arise a need of articulation and from that arises language. Language worships meanings through words. Words create, in turn, their own symbolic or otherwise meanings. These meanings have a world of their own. One meaning that arose due to is-ness, another meaning which was the cause of language and the third kind of meaning, which is the effect of language itself. 

How does meanings arise from language? I claim each word travels through history through a trajectory which ascribes on it a meaning. So, there develops a sea of meanings of which man finds himself confused whether anything among them has any significance or not. Other men do not even feel the need to meaning. Life, as it is, is hard enough for them not to be able to think about meanings and stuff. 

Meaning in its core, only means a need of explanation. Why me? Why all this? Why everything, everywhere all at once? To which, the existence has no answers. But I claim man is the answer that man is searching. 

When we pray to God, in Hinduism, it is popularly called Bhajan. What Bhajan precisely is? "Bhaja" is the root word of Sanskrit means "To experience". To experience the is-ness. But whose is-ness? Yours? nope. But the ones whose Bhajan is being done. The naive questions whether there is God, cannot be a yes-no answer. The reality lies in the intricacy of is-ness. When to say something exists? A thought, can we say, does not exist? How does a rock existing and a thought existing different? The truth being, Man cannot think something without something being a thought. In order for the rock to exist for the man, it has to go through a journey of being a thought from a rock. We do not understand rock. We cannot understand a rock as it is. We can only understand the mere thought. When we Bhaja any God, it becomes a thought. The material origin becomes immaterial. When the is-ness is established within thought, then the thinker is not concerned with the real-life existence. It is like a character establishment of a plot. And it is very easy for the Bhakt to forget his own thought in order to establish the Bhagwan. 

So, Bhajan exploits the is-ness of the other. The God. It lets you forget your own is-ness. It is effective to be in a flow of is-ness of thought.  Unlike meditation, where is-ness of the self is experienced, Bhajan is experiencing the is-ness of the god. Many people, in the enlightenment symptom, would agree to the is-ness of the self but not to the is-ness of the other. But the truth it their agreement and disagreement, both are shallow. 

Is-ness of anything is actually projection of anything external onto our minds. When we project our whole being in the vast universe onto ourselves, from outside, in meditation, we feel how the ability to feel feels like. Meditation, in itself, is gratitude to existence, Thank you for existing through me. Bhajan, on the other hand, is gratitude to the other. Thank you for existing. Meaning, in a nutshell, is celebrated through these two means, Dhyana and Bhajan. Existence, the is-ness, the projection of a thing into thought and also not-a-thing into thought makes them at par with each other. Rock as a thought and God as a thought becomes equal. You, on the other hand, when you become your own thought, also become the same. 

I conclude, with this. I wrote it after a sweet experience of is-ness after a Bhajan. 

SOME HEGELIAN REVERSALS I ENCOUNTERED IN LAST 15 DAYS!

I wanted to always write on abstract philosophical topics. Someone asked the great patriot Lala Lajpat Rai, "What will you do after India gets independence?", to which He replied, "I am a schoolteacher. I will teach." This is exactly my attitude. As a writer, I like to write on theory, the more abstract and non-useful, the better it is for me. Why, if you ask me, I have less obligations to be correct here. When we try to analyze society and politics, there is a sort of constraint that your analysis should be correct. This correctness, I despise. People do not read through texts. They do not deal with in between textual stuff. Anyhow, here I am, writing about my favorite philosopher's favorite philosopher's one of the favorite tools, Dialectic reversals. 

Let me begin with a joke. This will explain what I mean by Dialectical reversals. An UPSC aspirant qualifies civil services exam and goes to the ultimate Mecca, which is ironically in Mussoorie in Uttarakhand. He keeps studying all day even after his selection while his training his LBSSNA. One day, his friend, a fellow probationary officer, asks him, "Why you are still working hard? you are selected now!" To which the aspirant replies, "Exactly, that is why I fear that now that I qualified the exam, people might find out that I do not know anything at all, and My selection is all a farce!" 

This is what Reversals are all about. Hegelian Dialectical reversal is when the Anti-thesis is not stated as simply negating the thesis but in fact, uplifting the central argument of the thesis itself and and making it the central argument of the negation. How? "Why are you studying when you are qualified?" has an implicit assumption that one should only study for qualifying the exam. To which, the anti-thesis, is not this that, "Oh!no, it is my hobby to read and so on!", but rather, a dank acceptance of the fact that One does not really need to know stuff to qualify this exam, just work and get accustomed with facts and qualify and at the end you really did not learn anything in content and just some discipline and other moralistic learnings and so on and so on. This is really reversal in practice. 

Another joke. I call it the men will be men joke. Have you seen those humorously pervert advertisements of an alcohol where a man is seen to be going extra mile to impress a woman and then a song plays and a sort of background voice speaks, "men will be men!" What is this tautology? 

Tautological statements, according to Hegel, are self-reversals. What does that mean? It means often we use this format of sentence, "The thing is a thing" when that thing fails to be the ideal version of itself. For example, In the Ad, when the man does not behave in a moral and high self-esteem person, he is said to be a man, signifying that he could not live up to the ideal version of a man, which is, a good man. What is in fact, a good man, is a different discussion. Here, A good man, according to the ad is simply someone who does not show off in order to impress women. 

Let us take another observation. I have been preparing for this silly, superficial exam called civil services. It is another matter, if I could not qualify it. But the fact remains the same, that this exam demands from the candidate a certain kind of superficiality in terms of opinions, demeanor and other things. It is, in some sense, a beauty contest of the graduates. Let us come to the joke. This exam has three stages, prelims, mains and the interview. It is often said as popular wisdom among aspirants, that one should prepare for mains first and then prelims. The reason often given is "What good is preparing for prelims if you have no preparation of mains!" This is so interesting. I reply to these people, sometimes on their face, but sometimes in my head if the person I am talking to is too stupid to understand the joke, I say, "But wait a minute. I agree. But What good is preparation of mains either, if you have no preparation of prelims?", Did you get the reversal that I did? The central reason behind the thesis "Oh! One should prepare for Mains", is "That qualifying one without the other is of no use", the same argument can be used to make its anti-thesis, "Oh! one should prepare for prelims". This is Philosophical reasoning at its purest and the most abstract. Ok, I am not stupid. I also would have prepared, and I did, of mains first and then prelims. But that is the thing about theory. It is not wisdom. It is not some life advice. It is an insight into how logic and language interact via paradoxes and contradictions. 

I had another insight few days back when I was hanging with my friends. It is a Psychoanalytic one. People use defense mechanisms to defend their deepest insecurities. I claim, "Embracing the attack might be the best defense!" again, a reversal used here. How? When you defend yourself through humor or something. The dialog is extended, and your mind accepts the premise and dialectics begin. Your mind starts thinking. But, if you embrace the psychological attack on your deepest insecurities, you stop the thought then and there. But it is not that simple. Sometimes this blank acceptance can become the deepest denial of the fact and that may lead to anxiety on the sub-conscious level. I saw one of my friends, being victim of this. He was listening to a song when I arrived. I came with one of our common friends. We saw him busy with music, we started talking. And it is a boring fact about me that anything with me becomes a philosophizing session of the world as it is. He listened through all our conversations and tried to intervene here and there. He started complaining about it that how theory can be a futile exercise and how real changes are required and how coming here is a waste of time for him. But haa! did you get it? few minutes back, this person was listening to music, that was for him, no waste of time. So, no what happened? Is he being bitchy? How to explain this? One more fact to add. He showed symptoms of visible anxiety. Legs shaking, sweat on his forehead. Now! What is the explanation? Is he deliberately sabotaging the discussion? Is he cruel? I claim he is not. He is the most genuine of us all here. Then who is cruel here? So, I have two answers to this. First, it is me. and second, it is no one. Let us see how! So, he is definitely not bluffing. Genuinely, music for not waste of time for him. It was precisely rest. What is the difference between Rest and waste of time? I claim, rest should be an activity which should make you, almost inspire you, to work again. It is in some sense, be repetitive, boring, or somewhat inactivity. Listening to music, even the same song again and again, is a good rest. A waste of time is precisely which throws you into procrastination. For example, an interesting philosophical discussion is many times so interesting and dopamine inducing that in comparison, studying for an exam might seem futile. Now, come to his response. Was it anger? No, I believe it was a cry of intellect. Intellect, many a times, comes with its curse of insecurity. I quote Charles Bukowski, 

                        "Beware the knowers, because they are afraid of what they do not know!" 

This is actually a statement about intellect for a reason. If your intellect comes from a reason other than intellect itself, insecurity is the byproduct since if that reason is threatened anyhow, you feel insecure. Here, the reason for intellect for this friend of mine, seems to be coming from a dire need to qualify an exam. This exam is unique in the sense that unlike other exams, this exam has no escape from guilt mechanism. Imagining you are peeing beside a road in a small town or village. Unfortunately, it is a common exercise in our country till date. No public urinals. An UPSC aspirant might feel guilty even for peeing. 

I STOP HERE TILL NEXT TIME.